Wood Carvings by Mark Sheridan

Archive for the category “Hamilton Wood Carving Show”

I attended the Hamilton show this past weekend with my chalice box and, once again, I had a chance to spend the day and evenings with Emily.

This is a big and well organized show staged at the Canadian Warplane Museum hangar adjacent to the Hamilton airport. Although wood carving is a big part of the show, I suspect the majority of the people come to the show to take in the many vendors selling and demonstrating wood working equipment. And there are a lot.

Of course, besides enjoying the wood working and wood carving, the aviation museum is also open and visitors can mill around these restored and airworthy aircraft.

The chalice box took a first place in the relief carving category and there were many beautiful carvings in all categories. I thought that the best of show this year was just spectacular. Carved by John Mills, this was a carving inspired by a hood ornament of a 30’s or 40’s era cadillac. It was very well done.

You’ll forgive me for displaying these ribbons…Mervin got a 1st in Caricatures, 1st in Open Class and 1st Best in Show at the Canadian Carving Championships held in Hamilton Ontario this past weekend!

I had just a great time with my daughter, Emily, and we got a chance to chat with all kinds of carvers. I took quite a few photos and I’ll get some of them posted shortly so that you can see the wide variety of outstanding carvings that were displayed.

I’m just back from the Hamilton Carving Show with some good news! The little Country Hound placed 1st in Open Caricatures, 2nd in Open Class and 3rd Best of Show. Not bad for a banjo-playing-hound!

I met Emily for the day on Saturday and we had another great time together…taking in the carving and wood show, touring through the aircraft museum there and seeing all of the air-worthy restored aircraft and finishing off the day at our favourite Indian restaurant. What a great daughter.

Many, many fine carvings at the show and it was nice to chat with the other carvers that I’ve met over the last few years. Dave Wilson had an outstanding caricature carving in Open Class. This was a caricature of a real-life performer and Dave even managed to get the actual performer to sign his piece. Very nice and an interesting story behind the carving.

John Mills had a nice relief carving that really caught my eye. You’d think that this was cut separately and laid on the background, but, in fact, this was all carved from one solid piece of wood.

George Cook also showed off a really nice Cardinal that he did for the show. The branch and leaves were copper wire, automotive body filler and copper shim-stock. It looked to me that as much attention went into the branch and leaves as did the songbird. Once again, real nice.

Some really interesting carvings and I wish that I had caught all of the names associated with the carvings. I want to also mention that a real highlight of this particular show is the time that the judges spend chatting with you individually and then later in seminar style to provide feedback on each of the carvings. I got a chance to spend some time with Neil Cox, Mike Shepherd and George Cook in this regard. A great opportunity to learn. Well done to the organizers of this event!

The Canadian Carving Show was held again this year in Hamilton, Ontario at the War Heritage Museum adjacent to the International Airport. Again, my daughter, Emily, and I were able to get together for a day to take in the show and also enjoy a visit to our favourite Indian restaurant and a bit of a shopping spree at IKEA. A lot of fun.

We attended together on Saturday, and I returned on Sunday to take in more of the show. The event was very well attended in spite of some extreme snow and ice conditions that hampered travel that weekend. Being a combination of wood-working and wood-carving, the show attracted in a lot of suppliers and craftspeople with common interests. There were some very good deals to be had on supplies and equipment as well as some excellent demonstrations to take in.

The museum was also available to all wood show participants, and Emily and I made good use of that. 95% of the aircraft, of which only a few are shown in the photo below, are airworthy. I believe that the Lancaster, shown here, is one of only two airworthy Lancasters left in the world. I know that I’ve seen this Lanc fly overhead several times when I’ve visited my hometown of Niagara Falls.

I’m not exactly sure how many carvers brought carvings to the show…but, there were a lot of beautifully crafted items in all categories. I wish that I had recorded the individual’s name, but, one craftsman brought a cello that he had made.

Corporal Duncan Sowerby was awarded 2nd in Open Caricatures and proudly stood next to many exceptional carvings in the caricatures category. I also got a chance to talk with a number of caricature carvers who brought great carvings. A couple of photos of some of the carvings are included below, but several more are on the Flickr Site that you can link to at the side of this page.

Although I’ve been very proud of my “Hobo and Ned” carving, I can tell you that Emily’s and my jaw dropped when we saw that the judges awarded it 1st in Open Caricatures, 1st in Open, and, 1st Best in Show. What a thrill and what a memory.

This past weekend, my daughter and I attended the Canadian Carving Championship in Hamilton, Ontario. This show was a combination wood show and carving competition. I believe that this has been an annual event for a number of years, and, of course, was the first time that I had attended. I’ve been looking forward to this show for some time.

Held in the Hamilton Aircraft Museum, this was a great chance for Emily and I to take in some historic aircraft. I had been to the Hamilton airport a number of times as a kid to take in the military airshows, but had never been back to see the indoor museum of airworthy WWII era aircraft…most notably, the Lancaster, Spitfire, AT-6’s and Chipmunks.

It was obviously also a great chance to take in some woodworking demos and view some nice carvings. It was a high quality show with a lot of carving entries and I suspect that it was well attended for the full weekend.

The best part of the weekend was spending time with Emily. We had a great time. Emily was lucky enough to take away a door prize for some free lessons in creating a stained glass project. Watch for that project on her craft blog…you can link to ms premise-conclusion on this page.

The second best part of the weekend was having Zeke awarded 1st Place in Intermediates Caricatures and 2nd Place in Class. Check out those ribbons! I was really proud of this as there were some beautiful carvings that Zeke competed alongside.

Chico and Poncho also won 2nd Place in Intermediates Caricatures.

What a weekend. It’s going to be hard to beat…Emily, carving and airplanes!